Revolutionary Rant: Club Nintendo Rewards

I said it before for fan made DLC and I will say it here; just because something is free doesn't mean people lose the right to complain about the quality. I been watching what little gifts Nintendo of America was giving since Club Nintendo was first introduced in the North America region in 2008-2009 and I am disappointed with the stuff they give to people compared to what Club Nintendo in Japan gives its members (they get cool stuff like controllers and soundtrack CDs). NOA is just cheap.


The first set of elite prizes was pretty decent in 2009. Platinum members could choose between a mini-game for Punch-Out or a Mario hat (they also were given invitations a year later to the Nintendo World Store to meet the voice actor of Mario and play Super Mario Galaxy 2 early). In 2010, the platinum prize was just a small set of Mario figurines and this year, just a set a of badges. Gold members get ripped off the most here because so far, every year's reward for them was a desktop calendar.

Or offer something a bit more in value than badges and calendars. It's not that hard.

I would have thought it would be even less hard to move on with your life and not whine about a bunch of plastic crap.

They DO NOT have to offer jack shiet to anyone. If you dislike what they offer ... the reasonable (then again, reason doesn't really come to those who ***** about free things) thing to do would be NOT GET ANY OF IT!!! Holy crap?! REALLY?! Who woulda thunk it!

It's no different then the little things beer companies offer for buying a 18 or 24 of beer. If one company offers something cool or useful for myself (or any little hat / shirt my kids could wear really) then I will go and buy said beer from said company. If they don't provide some kind of bonus that I enjoy, I stick to my usual.

Come to think of it, I should rip the beer clerk a new anus because the beer vendor he works at supports companies giving away free stuff I may not like.

But really, you're playing Wii and this is what you ***** about?

What people are missing here is that is these sort of end of year prizes are something you could get normally with the coins you spend if they were there. No one is saying they will stop supporting Nintendo or stop buying their games because of this, but at the same time, the bonuses at the club year's end feel more like an afterthought. 2009's prizes were pretty decent, I don't get why they couldn't do stuff like that once more, like a Luigi hat or maybe even a book of artwork from various games.

As I will keep saying, getting free stuff does not mean you lose the right to complain about its quality. Everyone keeps getting caught in the mindset that whining about free stuff=greed. People aren't complaining for the sake of it or wanting something very expensive like a new game, but you would think reaching Gold or Platinum status for Club Nintendo would get you more than a small figurine set or a set of badges.

Ok, so you're *****ing about the free stuff that you got, while trying to defend your argument by saying its not about greed... when its all TOTALLY FREE sh*t in the first place... Sorry, how is that not greed? I think you're losing this one, dude. If you waste your own time buying into the stupid things that Nintendo asks you to do, or by playing their games, and then b*tch because they didn't give you cool or valuable enough stuff, what the f*ck is that aside from greed? If you agree to purchase their hardware and software and use said toys, that is as far as Nintendo is obligated to go. Those sales are a buisness contract saying they offered something at a set price, you agreed to buy it at said price, end of story. If they decide to give you some more free crap after that, that is an added benefit, it is a bonus. Its like Daddio said about the free stuff in beer cases, or the dumb little toys you get in a cereal box. If Kellogs gave you a free toy car, but it wasnt the one you wanted, would you think its ok to call them and whine about it? Well, by your logic I guess you would.

Getting free stuff means precisely that you cannot complain about it. If you paid for it, give er balls, complain till you're blue in the f*cking face. If you did not pony up any dough, then shut the f*ck up, enjoy your free action figures and calender, and keep playing your crappy Wii.

Oh so now we have to resort to petty insults about one's preference for a console? That's a smart move. So, by your logic, if no one is allowed to complain if they got something for free, then I guess if a car doesn't have air conditioning or doesn't have enough mileage for gas, then hey, we can't complain about how lousy that car is because we got it for free!

"So, by your logic, if no one is allowed to complain if they got something for free, then I guess if a car doesn't have air conditioning or doesn't have enough mileage for gas, then hey, we can't complain about how lousy that car is because we got it for free! "

Why would you complain about getting a free car? Seeing how the only two things you have already complained about in this hypothetical situation was the lack of A/C and gas mileage I will safely assume that said fictional car gets you from Point A to Point B without a problem. So who, in there right mind would complain about a FREE automobile?! Who gives a **** if the A/C doesn't work and it costs more on gas, if you had the money to purchase the vehicle of your desire you would have turned down this imaginary 'crap' automobile and bought the one of your own high standards!

"So, by your logic, if no one is allowed to complain if they got something for free, then I guess if a car doesn't have air conditioning or doesn't have enough mileage for gas, then hey, we can't complain about how lousy that car is because we got it for free! "

Why would you complain about getting a free car? Seeing how the only two things you have already complained about in this hypothetical situation was the lack of A/C and gas mileage I will safely assume that said fictional car gets you from Point A to Point B without a problem. So who, in there right mind would complain about a FREE automobile?! Who gives a **** if the A/C doesn't work and it costs more on gas, if you had the money to purchase the vehicle of your desire you would have turned down this imaginary 'crap' automobile and bought the one of your own high standards!

"So, by your logic, if no one is allowed to complain if they got something for free, then I guess if a car doesn't have air conditioning or doesn't have enough mileage for gas, then hey, we can't complain about how lousy that car is because we got it for free! "

Why would you complain about getting a free car? Seeing how the only two things you have already complained about in this hypothetical situation was the lack of A/C and gas mileage I will safely assume that said fictional car gets you from Point A to Point B without a problem. So who, in there right mind would complain about a FREE automobile?! Who gives a **** if the A/C doesn't work and it costs more on gas, if you had the money to purchase the vehicle of your desire you would have turned down this imaginary 'crap' automobile and bought the one of your own high standards!

I dont even own a nintendo console, but on the topic of whining about free stuff, I think wildmario is right in the fact that just because its free doesnt mean you cant complain...in certain circumstances. It comes down to expectations, people get excited about getting to the gold club etc cause they feel that at the end they will get something special, only because nintendo gave them that expectation. If nintendo said hey buy all our **** so that we can give u shitty prizes at the end, then no one can really complain. But the expectation of the consumer from nintendo at the end was to get some cool ****.
Its the same as if the guy giving u the free car said it runs perfectly and has all these cool features. If it didnt have any of the stuff he mentioned (yeah sure u would let a few of the inconsistencies go cause hey its free) you would be disappointed and would ***** just cause ur expectations were raised high and then shattered.

"Seriously, the Internet is not a gigantic platform created for the express purpose of *****ing and moaning about something you have no right or reason to ***** and moan about."

Oh Dan, your childlike naiveté and sense of wonder at life and the world around you never ceases to warm my heart.

Oh that wasn't my intention. I was just remarking on how if you judge based on content, the Internet WAS created for the express purpose of whining about things people have no right or reason to whine about, seeing as that constitutes about 90% of all the text generated within.

LOL, my browser crashed and it spammed my response. Love it!

I like how safari offered me Reader on this post...*cough* editorial sized comment section

Nintendo should offer magic mushroom shaped vibrators for gold members who weren't satisfied n

It's funny, I value those pins and things more than the statue from last year. At least the pins you can showcase to people.

The only reason I was pissed was I looked at the reward on the left, thought that's what I was getting, and realized I was getting the calender instead. Won't complain to get free stuff for what I was buying anyway, but it sorta killed the excitement to go from super awesome pins to a calender.

I gotta say, I think you're all crazy. What on earth does quality have to do with price? Something can be expensive and a piece of crap, just like something can be free and well put together. Or something can be free and a piece of crap.

Why is it inherently wrong to discuss the quality of something, simply because it didn't come with a price tag? Does not having a price tag make it immune from discussion about it's quality of workmanship? Does it make it immune to comparison to other similar offerings? Why should it?

To put this another way, do I have the right to complain about PSN being down, even though I didn't pay for it? I may not have paid for it directly, but there is a certain amount of implied services that come with purchasing the PS3. PSN being one of them, it being one of the major selling features OF the PS3. Sony clearly agreed, because they offered free games as an apology when it finally came back online (Though I suppose whether that was for PSN being down, or for the Credit Card info being stolen is up for debate.) In any case, Sony certainly didn't try to pull out the "You didn't pay for this, no right to complain when it's down" card, because they KNEW PSN was an implied service of owning a PS3. You might even say it was built into the cost of the PS3.

So how does this even relate to Club Nintendo? Nintendo set a precedent of quality in it's offerings with past years. It heavily implied the kinds of things you could expect from Club Nintendo, and it helped people decide if this made it worth participating in. People may not have paid for it directly, but they DID pay for it through the time they spent registering games, and possibly purchasing games they may not have otherwise purchased, etc. (No claim as to how much that may or may not be.) So as far as the complaints are concerned... I feel they're justified. Being free doesn't give it a free pass to avoid criticism, nor should it.

Addendum: (Because apparently even the new limit of 2000 characters is not enough for my verbose nature) I am not suggesting that people are ENTITLED to a better offering from Nintendo. Only that they should always have the right to express their discontent with the current offerings regardless of "cost."

Disclaimer: I don't know **** about Club Nintendo. If I got any facts about how it works wrong, sorry.

Daniel is clearly just a Nintendo fanboy and thinks they can do no wrong.